Industrywide Issues

Industrywide Issues | Landfills | New York | Steuben County

Steuben County, NY Landfill Ready to Accept Shale Cuttings
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

The Steuben County landfill in Bath, NY is now approved and ready to accept “shale cuttings,” or leftover soil and rock that comes from shale gas drilling. They join neighboring Chemung County that has accepted shale cuttings for over a year now, and Allegany County.

Although they don’t expect to receive much in the way of cuttings this year from Pennsylvania drillers because of a slowdown in drilling, Steuben officials want to be ready “just in case” Marcellus drilling in New York ramps up.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Why Has Fracking Become a Political Issue?
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

An excellent article in Industrial Heating magazine tackles the issue of hydraulic fracturing and the pot shots being taken by anti-drillers, based not on science, but on scare tactics. The author says the fracking issue has largely become political (where have you heard that before?!). Here is a paragraph from the article that could have been written by MDN:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research | Wastewater

New Study on Water Pollution Risk from Marcellus Drilling
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

A new paper is about to be published in a scientific journal that will no doubt get misrepresented and widely reported in the mainstream press about assessing the risks of Marcellus Shale drilling. The paper is titled “Water Pollution Risk Associated with Natural Gas Extraction from the Marcellus Shale,” written by a graduate student and his professor at SUNY Stony Brook. The published paper will appear in the August issue of the journal Risk Analysis, a publication of the Society for Risk Analysis (a preview copy of the full article is embedded below).

The paper looks at the theoretical probabilities of fracking fluids finding their way into the natural environment and polluting (contaminating) fresh water supplies. MDN will discuss what this paper does, and does not, say.

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Earthquakes | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Bloomberg (Once Again) Says Fracking Causes Earthquakes
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Bloomberg Businessweek is highlighting the publication of a new paper that looks at earthquake activity around injection wells in Texas and concludes that fracking causes earthquakes. The article starts this way:

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Chenango County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation

NY Town with Permits wants Food Grade Fluids in Fracking
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

The Town of German, NY, located in Chenango County—one of the “Lucky Five” counties that may see limited fracking if Gov. Cuomo signs off on it—took a vote and sent a letter to both Gov. Cuomo and Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens asking them to require drillers to use “food grade fluids” when and if fracking begins. Why is that letter important for this tiny town with a population of 370? Because three permits to drill in the Utica Shale are pending for the Town of German, and the town board’s letter to the DEC may be interpreted as a “don’t drill here” indication.

Both Com. Martens and Gov. Cuomo have stated when and if drilling permits are issued, they’ll go only to “supportive” communities. Sure sounds like German is not being all that supportive with their letter.

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Want a Job in Ohio’s Utica Shale? There’s a Website for that! [Free]
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Energy in Depth – Ohio has just launched a new portal to connect job seekers with companies that have jobs working in the Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling industry in Ohio.

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El Paso | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | Pipelines | Tennessee Gas Pipeline

Kinder Morgan Sells Tennessee Pipeline to Itself
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Stories about pipelines are not very glamorous, but when the pipeline in question is one of the major pipelines that carries Marcellus Shale gas—it’s important nonetheless. This story is sort of inside baseball. Kinder Morgan, the country’s largest pipeline company, recently concluded the acquisition of another huge pipeline company—El Paso (for $21 billion). As part of the deal, for regulatory reasons, they are required to sell the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) and a half interest in the El Paso Natural Gas pipeline (EPNG). They just announced a deal to do so, selling it to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, which is a subsidiary/related company to Kinder. So Kinder has sold a pipeline to itself, in essence.

Here’s the press release:

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Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

The Marcellus becomes No. 1 Shale for Natural Gas in U.S.
August 6, 2012August 6, 2012

In four short years, the Marcellus Shale has gone from barley registering on national energy reports to becoming the number one most productive natural gas field in the United States, according to Powell Shale Digest and data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

Is Big Oil & Gas Just Like Big Tobacco?
August 6, 2012August 6, 2012

MDN has observed that for weeks now news outlets have recycled the same story with variations on a common theme: Some university studies that have produced reports “favorable” to the drilling industry were partially funded by the drilling industry, or at some point a researcher worked for the industry, and that calls into question the findings of said studies. The latest example is on display in the left-leaning Buffalo News.

MDN is disturbed. Not because the energy industry—which by the way keeps your lights on, keeps your home warm in the winter and cool in the summer, keeps relatively cheap gas in your automobile’s tank, and has helped create the most prosperous country on earth—helps fund some of these scientific studies (who else will pay to defend them?). No, we’re disturbed because the same media so wholly devoted to picking apart anything to do with fossil fuels, willfully and (we would say) criminally ignores the other side of this debate.

Let us explain with a few examples from the latest Bloomberg article:

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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA DEP Sec. Michael Krancer Takes the Gloves Off
August 6, 2012August 6, 2012

When you’re effective at your job and your enemies don’t like it, they call you mean. Case in point: Michael Krancer, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). He’s very effective in his job as the state’s top regulator of oil and gas drilling. And anti-drillers just hate him.

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a story yesterday outlining just how mean he is (no doubt a badge of honor for Mr. Krancer). The story starts this way:

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Business Owner: Marcellus Drilling “Saved Our Cookies”
August 6, 2012August 6, 2012

According to the owner of a Charleston, WV construction company, Marcellus Shale drilling has “saved our cookies.” He’s referring to the economic reality that Marcellus drilling has single-handedly revived the construction industry in the Mountain State.

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Alternative Energy | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

NYT Columnist Says NatGas OK for Now, But Not for Long-Term
August 6, 2012August 6, 2012

Thomas L. Friedman, columnist for The New York Times, penned a column for Sunday’s edition titled, “Get it Right on Gas.” It is an instructive column and is perhaps the best example yet of the things MDN has been saying (yelling, screaming) for the past two years: Those who oppose drilling do so because of their opposition to all fossil fuels and their embrace of a mythical alternative energy nirvana future.

Here’s a sampling:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Australian Environmentalist Group Supports Fracking
August 6, 2012August 6, 2012

When one of Australia’s leading environmentalist groups, committed to sustainable and alternative energy—the Conservation Council of Western Australia—says that hydraulic fracturing can be done safely and that they will support it, we take notice.

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About MDN | Chesapeake Energy | Encana Energy | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

MDN is Called Out by the Huffington Post [Free Access]
August 3, 2012August 3, 2012

Hey, it’s not every day you get prominently mentioned in a Huffington Post article, so we thought we would bring it to your attention: A ‘War on Shale Gas’?

MDN editor Jim Willis has long admired the HuffPo and its founder Arianna Huffington. Certainly not for her (or its) political positions! But because Arianna had the moxie to pioneer a new form of media at a time when it was not easy to do so. We love free speech, we love a plucky attitude, and we love that the HuffPo has kicked the venerable New York Times’ derriere. The HuffPo passed the NYT in both traffic and revenue (for their web properties) a long time ago.

So when a contributor to the HuffPo takes a shot at MDN, you may find it weird or unusual that MDN would respond with accolades for the HuffPo. You shouldn’t. We just keep it honest and if you read this blog for any amount of time you already know that.

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Commodity Price | Industrywide Issues

U.S. NatGas Prices Go Up, Except for the Marcellus
August 3, 2012August 3, 2012

Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) reports the price of natural gas in the U.S. made impressive gains last month—all except for the price of Marcellus Shale natural gas, that is. According to a press release announcing the results of “bidweek,” the once a month pricing the industry uses to set prices that many buyers and sellers of natural use for the coming month, infrastructure constraints (lack of pipelines) in the Marcellus are pushing prices lower as gas supplies bottleneck in the region. More supply sitting around, lower prices. Simple economics.

Below is the press release from NGI talking about the latest price news. Near the bottom is a link to a video where you’ll find the voice of a certain MDN blogger interviewing price expert Pat Rau. Give it a watch/listen.

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Chesapeake Energy | Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Taxation | Utica Shale

AP Questions OH Gov’s Mathematical Skills on Utica Shale
August 3, 2012August 3, 2012

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has stated that an energy company executive told him (in 2010) that they would eventually recover $1 trillion worth of oil and gas from Ohio’s Utica Shale. Kasich has repeated that remark many times since then—using it as a justification for his plan to increase severance taxes in the state to spread some of that wealth around to all Ohioans.

The Associated Press takes aim at the $1 trillion claim (and at Kasich) with a new story saying Kasich and the unnamed energy exec are way off base:

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